Nieuws van de afdeling

26 May 2011

Arrest of Mladic insufficient to justify Serbia’s accession to EU

‘The arrest of General Mladic is great news for the survivors of the massacre in Srebrenica but still does not justify Serbia’s accession to the European Union,’ says SP Member of Parliament Harry van Bommel, who cites the fact that other major war criminals sought by the International Criminal Tribunal on Yugoslavia (ICTY) continue to move freely around the country. In addition, Serbia still has to settle its dispute with Kosovo, which has declared its independence from the former Yugoslavia republic.

26 May 2011

Food price speculation: Government demands more openness from investors

SP Member of Parliament Henk van Gerven has chalked up a success in the fight against speculation in food prices, a major cause of global hunger. High prices have been partly brought about by speculation and index investments by investment funds. At Van Gerven’s request the cabinet will meet with investors to look into the extent to which they are involved in such speculation and how this can be dealt with. High food prices mean that millions more people in poor countries can no longer afford to eat adequately. In 2007 and 2008 this led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children.

24 May 2011

Transparency International report shows need for tough approach to corruption in EU

SP-Euro-MP Dennis de Jong sees the conclusions of the seventh report from Transparency International (TI) on the implementation of the OECD Convention against Bribery as confirmation of the need to adopt a tough approach to the problem of bribery committed by European corporations. The report shows that numerous countries are reluctant to tackle their own firms in cases where they are guilty of bribing foreign officials. ‘The Netherlands hardly does a thing to counter corruption in corporations established in our country,’ says De Jong. ‘Eight investigations and absolutely no convictions is a ridiculously low figure for a country with so many international companies, especially when you consider that Shell is being prosecuted by the United States in relation to bribery in Nigeria while just last week it was revealed that the payment of bribes by Philips in Poland is just “business culture”. Poland has begun an investigation into this, yet the Netherlands continues to do nothing.’

24 May 2011

Time to put an end to neo-colonial method of choosing IMF boss

SP Member of Parliament Ewout Irrgang has today written to Finance minister Jan Kees de Jager to ask him to withhold his support for his French counterpart Christine Lagarde to become the successor to IMF boss Dominique Strauss-Kahn. In Irrgang’s view it’s high time that the position was allocated on the basis of ability rather than nationality.

24 May 2011

Loud protest against still more European pressure for rail deregulation

Some five hundred angry railworkers were in Brussels today to protest against European Union plans to impose further deregulation in rail. Both SP Euro-MP Dennis de Jong and party colleague Farshad Bashir, a member of the Dutch national parliament, supported the demonstrators in their criticism of the disastrous plans. ‘We have seen in the last few years that deregulation of Dutch rail has certainly not led to improvements in quality,’ says Bashir. ‘Both passengers and staff will be the victims if these neoliberal plans are not rejected.’

20 May 2011

When will Somali suffering end?

Ewout Irrgang - Sometimes I imagine being in Mogadishu as a tourist, being able to drink a cup of coffee in a peaceful Somalia, sitting in a coffee tent where you can chat to the owner about the horrific civil war which fortunately happened long ago, while you enjoy a stunning view over the Indian Ocean. But that moment will be a long time coming. The civil war in Somalia has been going on for twenty years with no prospect of an imminent end.

International